Choose your adventure

Walking home on rainy days is one of my creative triggers. I am free to ponder things as they float into my mind as I travel a familiar path. I wanted to pop on here and ask you all what kinds of adventures you prefer: a travel smörgåsbord or a focused stop in one place? Please weigh in on the comments section of this post or send me an email via my contact page! I’ll run a poll as well on my twitter where you can weigh in.

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Having just returned from the epic #bluebootsgogulfcoasttour, I am finding myself feeling a little burnt out from traveling, and I wonder why. I packed strategically and got myself in the mindset for traveling. Check. We made it everywhere and back (although with some transportation snafus on both ends). Check. We had a GREAT time and our adventures grew into other little adventures, which is the cool part of having a mostly-structured, but somewhat flexible trip. Check.

We’re planning an outdoors excursion to Maine with our friends (send recommendations if you have them!). So why does the thought of another trip not sound amazing? I wonder if it might be because I wanted to spend more time in a few of the places we went to – we had (sometimes very) brief stops at a few places that I would have loved to spend a whole vacation at. We did, indeed, experience a travel smörgåsbord which was a product of having to get from point A (Florida) to point B (Texas) but with added stops of interest like Disney World, beaches, and cities with whole interesting cultures like New Orleans and Austin. It has left me wanting to go back to those places to “finish” exploring but in the meantime, it was perhaps too much of a good thing at one time.

What do you think? Does the purpose of trip (relaxing vacation vs. exploring a place you probably will only get to go to once) define the kind of trip (smörgåsbord vs. focused stop) that will be most enjoyable? We learn as we go, don’t we? Traveling thoughtfully gives us the capacity to embrace a greater appreciation for the things we see – even if we return to them again. Nothing stands completely still forever – the beauty and excitement of exploration lies in being able to see the nuance of change in the same places.

the real voyage of discovery comes not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes – marcel proust